So lets tell our clients to patiently wait until Apple gets around to giving this software what we need ! FC7 isnt a great alternative when lots of transcoding is needed. Im heading for the company that takes professionals seriously..HELLO ADOBE!

They could have avoided this fallout by just saying from the beginning what's missing and what their time table is for getting it up to speed. While they are good at what the do, they are also stubborn as hell.

Having said that, I will continue to use FCP7 because it does what I need for the moment. I see a lot of potential in this new app the same way I saw it for the iPad when people were acting juvenile and making fun of the name. Some were saying they had no use for it and so on. Now no one makes fun of the name and every company is racing to get one to the market.

I am a bit disappointing that its not ready for prime time but it's potential is great IMO.

[Craig Shields]"They could have avoided this fallout by just saying from the beginning what's missing and what their time table is for getting it up to speed."

There are business law obligations that prevent them from talking about timelines. You have to defer the revenue tied to the value of those promised features until the feature is delivered. It's a pain to put a price tag on individual features, and Apple is NOT about delayed cashflow.

As for the "they should have told us," they kinda did, by making sure that a hardcore pro like Gary Adcock is one of the people who got a pre-release version, where he says flat out that is not a release designed for pros.

[Tom Daigon]"Jumping to Adobe CS5 is seamless and easy. No cash flow problems at all. It can be configured to feel like FCP 7 in terms of keyboard commands and its not an iMoive knock off ;-)"

I agree. We run FCP7 and CS5.5 seamlessly together here. CS5.5 is more similar to FCP than Avid is to FCP. Any FCP user will find the transition pretty easy and they will love the more powerful Premiere Titler and After Effects integration & Mercury rendering.

But I will probably get FCPX anyway when the dust settles in a couple of weeks and give it a go. It does seems from the many threads here that FCP7 will still have to be the main pro Apple NLE. The big issue is development in that product will stop, with FCPX not reaching the same extensive functionality for a considerable time to come.

[Tim Wilson]"As for the "they should have told us," they kinda did, by making sure that a hardcore pro like Gary Adcock is one of the people who got a pre-release version, where he says flat out that is not a release designed for pros.

Sorry, but to suggest that the sneak in Las Vegas implied that FCP X was less than professional software is at best misleading. Maybe you could argue that what they showed inferred that it was less than professional, but when their lips flapped, the guys from Apple did their best BSing to dissuade the audience from thinking that.

Keep in mind, they saw the Editor's Lounge with Mark Raudonis and Terry Curren in advance of the so-called sneak, and it's clear to me now that when they got up on that stage in Vegas they were doing their best damage control to counter what Mark and Terry had said previously on the record. What they said was far from any type of admission on their part that FCP X was less than professional, and saying that makes you sound a little like an Apple apologist at this point .

[Tim Wilson]"There are business law obligations that prevent them from talking about timelines. You have to defer the revenue tied to the value of those promised features until the feature is delivered."

This is clearly a convenient argument that companies like Apple use to allow themselves to cherry pick the things they want to release while avoiding those things they think will prove to be negative.

The entire sneak preview would most likely fall under the so called "business law obligations" if that were truly the guiding force behind all of Apple's decisions regarding what they chose to say versus what they avoided like the plague.

Using the legal argument is just Apple's way to give their cherry picked release of information some semblance of credence, and to shut down all laypersons who think lawyers are gods. Believe me, I have a Harvard Law educated brother who uses that technique all the time, and it's absolute bull tooty.

[Kylee Wall]"It's a 1.0 release and it's been out for 2 hours. You people are so silly.
"

Come now, it's a 1.0 release that's been out since well before the April sneak preview. That fact that Apple chose to speak publicly about some things and not about others is certainly grounds for infuriating users and for calling Apple to task.

[David Roth Weiss]"Come now, it's a 1.0 release that's been out since well before the April sneak preview. That fact that Apple chose to speak publicly about some things and not about others is certainly grounds for infuriating users and for calling Apple to task."

I absolutely agree with David.

Apple has not dealt with this release very well. Not even a proper presentation to release such an important product.There seems to be absolute chaos among editors right now. And just like after the supermeet, there is nobody to answer.

Sohrab

2.66 GHz 8-core, ATI Radeon HD 4870,
FCS 3, AJA Kona Lhi

"The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth-century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen." -- Carl Ally

I agree, but at the same time the name implies that this is a professional application and also in sticking with the same name as previous products leads one to think that this should be an upgrade. By not having some core functionality, it is fueling these fires. Had they called it something like Ultimate Editor Lite, it would have been easier to stomach and been much more appropriate. Then later as they added the things that already exist in the product line, but made it all better, they could have renamed it to Ultimate Editor Pro - Final Cut's replacement.

Or why not just call it iMovie Pro? That's essentially what it is.The UI and magnetic timeline is from iMovie. The entire media handling structure based on Events is from iMovie. They chose to implement importing of iMovie projects and Events, but skipped any kind of backwards compatibility with FCP 7.

How come if it's version 1 it has an X after it's name, would have thought that would imply that it has some thing like ... ooh, 10 years of pedigree behind it and an existing fully functioning, tried and tested feature set for instance!

Then, I set my attitude aside and just went about learning the app, and it changed my attitude.

Is this ready today for users, no,but mainly most users are not ready to change.
This is a really powerful, forward looking application, and like many 1.0 releases there are pieces that are not fully enabled.

geez the app has been shipping for what like 7 hours at this point and everyone is already an expert.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

[gary adcock]"This is a really powerful, forward looking application, and like many 1.0 releases there are pieces that are not fully enabled.
"
But isn't the big question where Apple is heading with this new product? I'm sure the next version of FCP X will have a lot of new features. But I seriously doubt that they will be the features that are important to me, being a member of a niche market.

Final Cut Pro and the studio bundle has always evolved towards the high end professional market. Color, DVD Studio PRO, Cinema tools and Compressor were/are not really useful or even accessible for the average Joe. But they added value for the professionals. This new product seems aimed at a different market. I'm absolutely not saying that democratization of video creation is a bad thing. But when implementing export to Vimeo is more important than exporting an EDL it shows where Apple's focus is.

They have created great value in the FCP brand and they are using that brand to push a product that to me appears aimed at the broader consumer/prosumer market. It makes perfect business sense. And in that sense I applaud them for doing it.

[Stephan Walfridsson]"But isn't the big question where Apple is heading with this new product?"

did you read what I wrote??

Why is working with Metadata so difficult for people to understand, we are talking about quantum leap in the underlying technolgy for handling media.

I have been working on these kinds of projects for 5 + years, and I have never seen any application ( not just an NLE) that is as fundimentialy different from the ground up that anything else on the market.

I had the same reactions that everyone else had, I just looked deeper, its about building for the future.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

[gary adcock]"Why is working with Metadata so difficult for people to understand, we are talking about quantum leap in the underlying technolgy for handling media."

I don't see anything that is far off from what they do in iPhoto or iTunes already. Well sure, compared to iPhoto you have the added dimension of time. And metadata is just a fancy word for information, you know.

[gary adcock]"I have never seen any application ( not just an NLE) that is as fundimentialy different from the ground up that anything else on the market. "

Really? I think it looks and functions quite a lot like iMovie. And btw different isn't by definition the same as better...

[gary adcock]" its about building for the future."
Did you read what I wrote? My comment was that I was questioning where Apple intends to take FCP X in the future. What are they trying to build.

[Stephan Walfridsson]"My comment was that I was questioning where Apple intends to take FCP X in the future. What are they trying to build."

It's a bit like religion Stephan, you have to believe first, then your prayers will be answered.

Apple want millions of people to buy the proverbial "pig in a poke," then they will come around and fix it. But, only if you believe enough to buy what they're selling now, which has absolutely no resemblance to anything you know and no resemblance to anything you really feel you need.

[gary adcock]"geez the app has been shipping for what like 7 hours at this point and everyone is already an expert."

Gary,

Between you and Tim you've got all bases covered in this thread - you guys seem to be the perfect Apple tag team, with you saying you've changed your mind, that FCP X is professional, and then Tim chiming in asking why everyone is so surprised it's not professional, even implying (wrongly so) that Apple told us this themselves at the sneak preview.

Now, you wonder how people can question your expert point of view when it essentially appears you and Tim are speaking in concert and possibly even kissing ass with Apple.

All I did was agree with some postings that commented on my view of what was professional was a bit narrow. It is my view, so why not admit that I understand that it is narrow.

"you wonder how people can question your expert point of view when it essentially appears you and Tim are speaking in concert and possibly even kissing ass with Apple."

I would expect people to question any view points with their own knowledge, my comments here are my opinions and the facts as I see them, I portray them as nothing other than that. My comments and opinions are mine and mine alone.

As for kissing Apple's ass, I have been on the out with Apple for more than 6 years, there is no one at Apple that thinks I am kissing anything they have and I have been an outspoken critic of the failures of every version of FCP and the limitations of every software package out there.

What part of No 3rd Party hardware support makes me happy? Or now that I am doing mostly 3D work, there is no support for Cineform's 3D codec means that I cannot do WORK with this right now?
Lack of support for GlueTools means I cannot handle DPX. ARRIRAW or Phantom work with this?

Yet I see something behind it, Called Metadata, something that I have worked tirelessly for years talking about and trying to get people to understand, and here it is. It's frakin' powerful too.

So it means I need to learn how to work a new way, its not the first time, it will not be the last.

I have been working in file based workflows for years now, so this was not a huge leap for me, certianly not as big a leap as people are talking about here.

lastly for the record:
I brought this to Tim, it is my understanding that he has had no contact with Apple regarding this release, and from the "emergancy" phone call I had this am from someone very high up at Apple- they are not very pleased with me either.

So I guess that what we have is a good compromise- when no one is happy with the decision.

gary adcock
Studio37

Post and Production Workflow Consultant
Production and Post Stereographer
Chicago, IL

[gary adcock]"lastly for the record:
I brought this to Tim, it is my understanding that he has had no contact with Apple regarding this release, and from the "emergancy" phone call I had this am from someone very high up at Apple- they are not very pleased with me either.
"

For the record Gary, it was actually Tim's comments in this thread that kind of got me in a snit. In all fairness to you, he added things to your thread that kind of combined in a way to change your original message. I read them as one unified message when I probably shouldn't have. Sorry for that.

Who knew this forum could be so entertaining! There seems to be flurry of opinions here so maybe if I offer this rant I'll blend in.

Apple has not updated FCP in two years, offering an admittedly tepid update at that. The previous update came two years before that.

Adobe, a much smaller company with a much larger software inventory, has offered more frequent updates with many relevant feature updates. Adobe has done all that without completely restructuring the interface of their software and, more importantly, not completely changing the workflow. They offer new products all the time but introduce them in parallel with existing products so as not to disrupt profitable business operations. They still sell and support Pagemaker and Framemaker despite the fact that art directors and editors that I know prefer InDesign.

Here's my point. To all that say that they are now getting 64-bit code, I say great But Adobe made that same leap and maintained a consistent interface while adding some fabulous features to boot. What gives? You could say that the interface needed revamping and I say great. But couldn't you have done this on a parallel path and at least given the software the ability to communicate with other software? Maybe utilize XML or even a dumb EDL to allow edits to translate to another device? Or perhaps they could have thrown in Automatic Duck to do the job for them - seems like the polite thing to do. Legacy projects are vital to so many business models and to ignore that is unconscionable. To say that they will develop features on FCP X that already exist on a viable product, FCS 3, while discontinuing that product seems weird to me and makes me feel as if Apple only wants to sell hardware and use the software as a loss leader. In fact, since FCP X is not ready for a professional environment and FCS 3 is no longer sold, Apple no longer sells professional edit software.

Apple supporters are advancing the argument that it is a daunting task to do this all at once and we should give them time - come on, get real. Adobe completely rewrote the code for the entire Master Collection to 64-bit, added features and kept it running solidly. And they're a much smaller company. Don't equate Apple with some guys writing software in their basement. Apple is one of the world's largest corporations with 66 billion dollars in cash reserves. They have the resources but fall short on commitment.

I would like to add this last note. Despite my having mentioned Adobe in a positive light, I am not advocating a move to Premiere. I have used many edit platforms over the years from flatbeds and uprights to CMX, Quantel, Sony, EMC, Avid and Apple. I believe in truly being platform agnostic and using the tool that's right for the job. Perhaps Apple is counting on those who never have or never will use any other platform as an excuse for being lazy and putting their profits over our business and creative needs.

It's clear that the only choices right now is to hold tight (or abandon ship). Gary A. clearly states that there is a core to this application that promises much more. The problem is that it was shipped prematurely, or it should have been long ago told to us that this is a new direction, and that you should stay put except for the chosen, given it's base of professional users. I went through the programming hell of Windows .NET back in the early part of the last decade, it was very similar. A beta product that was launched early. But MS kept making it better, I think (G).

So I think that the only choices here are for those of you who make a living off of being the experts at FCP, you need to pay Apple to buy the product and learn the current version, teach us all the great few things that it offers, and the rest of us will either wait for some semblence of a professional product, and pay you in the future for your expertise, which is a natural thing to do (heck lots of people are still using Windows XP with Office 2000 or more to the point, tape based cameras!), or we will abandon ship and head over to one of the competing products.

This is about tools folks, not religious artifacts. FCP is not the Shroud of Turin. I'm very happy with the current version, when I'm not using a competing product to save time for low budget jobs in avoiding transcoding time. I have no need to pay Apple $300+ to buy a product today that can't even open my previous version projects! Heck, even Vegas can do that! (G).